World In Conflict AU Singleplayer Preview

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Finally, the singleplayer game is unveiled. And yes, it's amazing. New trailer within!

By Bennett Ring

The World in Conflict PR tank has been steamrolling through the media battlefield for over a year now, but the vast majority of its cannon fire has been pumping out rounds about the game's frantic multiplayer mode. In a recent interview with the game's Lead Designer, Magnus Jensen, even he voiced a few concerns that the singleplayer hadn't been shown off enough.

Thankfully, the drought of information regarding this central component of the game has come to end, as IGN AU recently got our hands on a 6-mission singleplayer preview build. Even though Magnus had personally warned us that the build was very old, and was obviously embarrassed about its level of polish, after spending several hours tearing up the French countryside we have to say his concerns were unfounded. Apart from some serious crashing issues, which are commonplace with preview code, our time with the singleplayer has left us convinced that World in Conflict is a very serious contender for best strategy game of the year.

Check out this brand new World In Conflict Trailer - Magnum PI goes World War III.

Our first mission begins in the lush farming provinces of rural France. Instead of the usual cows, sheep and twittering bluebirds that would normally be found in this pleasant environment, the landscape is littered with Russian tanks, NATO artillery pieces and zooming Hind gun-ships. Friendly choppers play cat and mouse with an enemy armoured battalion in the foreground, while in the distance we can see enemy fighter bombers laying a carpet of hellfire courtesy of their napalm bombs. As the battle wages, an in-game cut scene introduces us to several of the key characters, who play a very prominent part in the game's engrossing storyline. Their on-screen debut also make it obvious just how versatile the game's graphics engine is. Like Company of Heroes, the game can zoom right into the detailed character's faces, but is even more meticulous than the impressive CoH engine. And best of all, it runs absolutely stutter-free, with all details maxed (we tested on a Core 2 Duo - overclocked to 3.3GHz - with 2GB DDR400 memory and a GeForce 8800GTX video card).

One of the first characters we meet is Bannon, an arrogant West Point graduate who thinks he knows more than veterans who were cutting their teeth on tank tracks when Bannon was still in diapers. Thanks to the writing skills of Larry Bond (who has co-authored many books with the God of War, Tom Clancy) and the folks at Massive, Bannon has real personality, albeit not one that you'd want to sink beers with at the officer's mess after a hard battle. His continuous whinging over the airwaves soon has us wishing we could turn our cannons on his units, who we can see fighting the enemy in the distance. By the second mission, where our distaste for this tank jockey has become an intense loathing, it's become clear that WIC does indeed have the gripping character-driven storyline that Massive promised; a feature that is rare in the often sterile, tactical RTS genre.

A French commander is also present on the battlefield and, like Bannon, we can see his units doing battle across the epic landscape. The levels in WIC singleplayer are simply massive, and they're jam-packed with action as far as the eye can see. It's easy to spend a few minutes watching other computer-controlled battles in far off reaches of the map, though it's not wise to do so, as our own objectives usually have a time limit. The result is the feeling that our small conflict is but a small part of a much larger battle.